Anger over delay in paramedics’ course

A GROUP of paramedics was due to begin administering life-saving drugs to ambulance patients this summer but a Department of Health cock-up has meant a three-month delay.

Ireland’s first 12-month training course in advanced paramedic skills had to be postponed, nine months after it began, because of the department’s failure to notify Brussels of planned changes to prescribing laws.

Former Health Minister Micheál Martin agreed to extend paramedic responsibilities in 2003 and a year later signed off on the regulations, which would allow senior ambulance workers to prescribe drugs.